The Acts of the Democracies

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2001

Sudan

In Sudan, several oil companies from Canada, Sweden,
France, Holland, Italy,
Austria (as well as Qatar, China and
Malaysia) continue to be involved in the systematic depopulation of large areas of the south and atrocities
against civilians, tens of thousands of whom have been killed and displaced from the areas around the oil fields.

The companies are protected by government forces and allow their airstrips and roads to be used by the military, while the revenues from oil are
funding expansion of the war. The news agency, Reuters, has reported that some local security forces used as
private contractors by the oil companies use child soldiers.

According to Amnesty International, government forces have used ground attacks, helicopter gunship and
indiscriminate high-altitude bombardment to clear the local population from oil-rich areas. Many atrocities have been committed. Male villagers are
killed in mass executions; women and children have been nailed to trees with iron spikes. In the villages of
Bentiu, Guk and Rik soldiers slit the
throats of children and kill male prisoners who had been interrogated by hammering nails into their foreheads. In
Panyejier, people are crushed by tanks and shot at by helicopter gunship. Many women are raped and abducted while
houses are burned and destroyed.

Since 1983 nearly 2 million people are estimated to have been killed. More than 4.5 million people are internal refugees while a million are in
exile.